A Mixed Reality Marriage (With Metaverse Mom)

Here's a mixed reality photo that tells many wonderful stories, and somehow, I feel like a proud uncle talking about it. (Or at the very least, a relatively giddy second cousin.) On the photo at right, the utlra-glam redhead is Peggy Sheehy, next to her daughter Meghan, who's next to her new husband, Keith Morris -- Meghan and Keith were wed in North Carolina late last month. Meghan introduced her mother to Second Life, in the beginning as entertainment, but subsequently for professional reasons too. (Meghan's a former Liaison with Linden Lab, now a developer with virtual world/education non-profit Global Kids; Peggy's the founder of MetaVersEd Consulting.)

Keith describes his relationship with Meghan in terms of milestones at Second Life Community Conventions. "[W]e met at SLCC 1," he tells me. (That was in 2005.) "We became romantic at SLCC 3 and got engaged at SLCC 4."

They met first in Second Life, of course, and here's at least two other uniquely SL twists to this story:

As you may have discerned, Keith's avatar Jade Lily is decidedly female. Keith also works in SL, now as a Community Manager with Metaversatility, and very early on, spearheaded the first SL-based fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Coreina and Jade were introduced in-world by Torley Linden, back when he was still a Resident with the surname Torgeson, and back when Torley was partnered to Jade. (Because as it happens, both were playing female avatars, who knew each other were straight men in real life, and decided to be a female couple in SL.)

"Torley and I were still partnered when he introduced me to Meghan," Jade continues. "We were just friends for several years." Jade and Torley drifted apart, another romance interceded, but eventually, Coreina and Jade became a pair in both worlds. I wrote about some of this year's ago, in this post, and in my book. The opening began like this:

So there's this guy who's a guy in real life but a girl in Second Life, even though in real life he's into girls, and then there's this other guy who's also a guy into girls in real life, and he was playing a guy in Second Life for awhile, but then decided to be a girl instead, and then like two months ago, guess what: the first guy met the second guy, and they fell in love, so now they're a couple-- even though they're really two guys into girls.

So now, if I were to add an addendum, it would read something like this:

And then guess what: the one guy introduced the other guy to a girl, he saw another girl, then came around to the first one, and this time, she was the girl for her in both worlds.

May they create their own story from here on out, and a beautiful one.

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Relationships inSL can be soooo much fun. I'm not being sarcastic. I really mean it. Here is a chance to be oneself without the limitations imposed by nature or nurture. SL lets the whim in "whimsy" out to play.